


Tall, Grande, Venti

by plutosrose



Series: Proudly Serving [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Job Interviews, M/M, Meddling Friends, Service Top Steve (in passing)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27609076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutosrose/pseuds/plutosrose
Summary: “Rhodey, not now, I’m doing something important.”Rhodey sighed deeply. “You were supposed to be at a congressional hearing like half an hour ago, what could possibly be more important?”“I’m trying to find someone Steve will sleep with.”-Tony hires a barista.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Tony Stark & James "Rhodey" Rhodes
Series: Proudly Serving [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1999117
Comments: 20
Kudos: 286





	Tall, Grande, Venti

Files were strewn across Tony’s desk, a myriad of photos, references, résumés, and assorted other documents that he’d managed to knick from SHIELD’s old databases. He was almost certain that he’d solved the problem when his phone rang. 

“Rhodey, not now, I’m doing something important.”

Rhodey sighed deeply. “You were supposed to be at a congressional hearing like half an hour ago, what could possibly be more important?”

“I’m trying to find someone Steve will sleep with.” 

There was silence on the other end of the line. “Right, of course, I see why that could be more important than convincing a bunch of senators that they shouldn’t be tampering with Iron Man’s flight paths.” 

“I think you will find that my other project is a matter of national security--in fact, it is about seventy years overdue. Rhodey,” Tony gasped, scandalized. “Are you encouraging me to procrastinate on a project?”

Another very deep sigh. “Tony, you need to get your ass down to DC as soon as possible. You do realize that Brandt hates your guts probably more than Stern did? There’s no way that he’s going to let you postpone again.”

Tony wrinkled his nose at the mention of Senator Brandt, an upstart from Kentucky that seemed to mention that his grandfather had been a “personal friend” of Captain America every few days on Fox News. He was almost as tired of him as Steve was, and that was saying something. 

“Well this is why I have you, right, Rhodester?” Tony held a photo of a redheaded woman and a blond man up to the light and squinted at them. 

“Tony...”

“Listen, you have never had to be on a mission with Steve in the middle of the fucking Alps, freezing your balls off, while he lectures you about how it isn’t actually cold, how he and the Howling Commandos slept in the woods, in the snow, only got one bedroll each and didn’t freeze to death.”

Silence. “Tony, I was there that time.”

“Then you understand my point,” Tony leaned back in his chair. “Talk to Brandt and see if he can’t push it off by a day. And I’ll send him a case of bourbon to apologize. Or a stripper.”

“Tony, I’m hanging up.” 

“Love you too.”

Rhodey let out a long sigh of exasperation and hung up the phone.

Tony set the phone back down and hummed to himself as he leafed through each of the files. This was going to take all day--or at least, most of the afternoon, he thought.  
-

He was weighing a brunette who could speak six languages against a blonde who could speak seven when a man burst into his office, flanked by Happy, who had his hand on the man’s forearm. 

“I’m so sorry, he walked straight through security and got on the elevator,” Happy panted, but for a moment, Tony was utterly transfixed by this man who had stormed into Avengers Tower like the place belonged to him.

He looked at him for a long moment–really looked at him, noticing the wavy brown hair that was swept into a bun at the nape of his neck, the too-trendy-for-you outfit, the blindingly bright blue-gray eyes.

Tony hated his guts instantly.

He was going to be perfect.

“Oh, he’s here for the interview,” Tony said, looking between them. Happy gave him a puzzled look. The intruder raised an eyebrow. “Thanks for looking out for us, Happy.”

Happy blinked at him several times, before letting go of the man’s arm and taking a step back. “Of course. I’ll be right outside the door.” 

When the door shut behind him, the man narrowed his eyes at him. “I don’t want a job.” 

Tony squinted at him for a moment, before he relaxed back into his chair. “Of course you don’t want a job. But I have a job for you. If you want it.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

Tony sighed, long and dramatic, before reaching out to rearrange the files on his desk. “It’s classified.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Look, I came in here because Stark Industries is about to tear down the Bellevue Theater as part of the new Stark Industries campus in Brooklyn–the theater’s been in existence for over a hundred--”

“Okay, so we won’t tear it down,” Tony shrugged, “Come work here and we won’t tear it down. I can even give you $30/hr to serve coffee to all the corporate jackasses who come in this building. I’m, as they say, making an offer you can’t refuse.”

The man’s eyes widened for a split second, before he glared at him. “You’re really just as much as an asshole as I thought you’d be.”

“I’m glad,” Tony beamed.

-

A week after the man--James Barnes--started, Sam Wilson stormed up to his office and smacked a cup of coffee down in the middle of a stack of papers that Tony assumed were important.

“Nice of you to bring me coffee,” he quipped, before Sam narrowed his eyes at him. 

“Go ahead and taste it, you won’t think I’m so nice,” Sam grumbled, and Tony decided to humor him.

And it was bad. Somewhere in between bitter and sour and sweet and totally burnt. He’d mixed drinks in college with clear and dark liquor that were more drinkable. 

“It’s not...that bad.”

“It’s that bad,” Sam said flatly, giving him a disapproving look. 

“I’ll look into it.” 

-

Well, he didn’t exactly need to look into it. He’d been going down to the coffee kiosk every morning, trying to time it right so that he’d see Steve in passing. Steve got up at fuck o’clock, but he sometimes was coming back from his run by the time that he was ready to get coffee and start the day. 

And his experiment, it seemed, was already turning out to be a success.

Sure, he might have seen Barnes cuss at a customer.

He might have seen more than one person walk a few feet, take a sip of their coffee, before slamming the entire thing--liquid and all--into the trash.

But it was a success, because the second that Steve laid eyes on Barnes, he turned into some doe-eyed nervous motherfucker. Barnes, for his part, tried to look like he was too cool to notice that Captain America was practically floating on air in his direction, but Tony caught the occasional, surreptitious looks that he shot in the good Captain’s direction. 

Good work Stark, he thought with a grin.

\- 

A week and a half later, after Steve had squirmed his way through a meeting on a Hydra base in Montana, shifting from side to side, tapping his fingers on the table, Tony felt like he’d won the lottery. Well, considering the fact that he was already rich, like a really, really big lottery. The kind of lottery that would make his existing amount of wealth utterly insignificant. 

Because for one time in his entire life, Steve wasn’t glued to the maps that he laid out. He didn’t drag the meeting on for an extra hour with stray observations and ideas about Hydra. Or longer. Tony was willing to bet good money that Steve Rogers could spend more time talking about Hydra than the assholes who had actually joined it. 

“Got somewhere important to be?” he raised an eyebrow at Steve as he nearly bolted out the door the moment that he closed out of the maps.

Steve gave him a look of shock, confusion, and exhilaration all at once before he actually did bolt out the door. 

“Hmm, that was fast,” Natasha said flatly, folding her arms. 

“Cap have a double life?”

“No, he’s hung up on the barista. Makes terrible coffee, but he seems nice.” 

Sam made a face. “Yeah, to you, maybe.”

Natasha smiled sweetly. “It’s my warm and bubbly personality.”  
Tony looked between them and felt like he was missing something. 

-

The next day, Tony was down in the lobby to get some coffee when Clint popped up out of nowhere.

“Jesus Christ! Where the hell were you, Barton?”

“Vent.”

“Sure, why not?” Tony huffed. 

Clint nodded in Barnes’s direction, where he was in the middle of arguing with a man who was red-faced and clutching a pastry bag so hard it looked like it might explode. 

“I saw Steve talking to him for an entire hour yesterday,” Clint said, “James ignored all of the customers. They just gazed into each other’s eyes.”

“Gross.” Amazing.

“I have a picture.” Clint held out his phone. “Want to see?”

“No,” Tony said reflexively, before pausing and pursing his lips. “Yes.”

Clint snorted and held out his phone, and sure enough, there it was--Steve and Barnes, leaning in close, looking at each other like a couple of lovesick teenagers.

“How did you even get that picture without them noticing?” Tony asked, before he squinted at Clint and shook his head. “Never mind, don’t want to know.” 

Just then, Steve came in the front doors, in sweaty, sweaty workout clothes, and Barnes visibly perked up. Christ. 

He watched as Steve cut in front of the line that still, inexplicably, gathered in front of the kiosk every morning. Barnes leaned in to peck him on the cheek, before he leaned in to whisper something into Steve’s ear.

From the way that Steve reacted, it must have been fucking filthy, because his entire body seemed to blush. Tony would have paid good money to know what Barnes had said to him. 

Barnes hopped up over the counter, forcing the line to move a few steps back, before he pressed a kiss to Steve’s lips, hard. Definitely indecent, definitely filthy. 

Then he hooked his fingers around the waistband of Steve’s stupid gym shorts and started to pull him after him. And Steve, fucking Steve, went after him easily, all doe-eyed and shit. 

“Well,” Tony said, making a show of checking his watch before anyone could get the idea to report Barnes to him. “I have to go.” 

“I do too,” Clint said, gesturing at the nearby vent, and Tony didn’t even want to know what the fuck that meant. 

From the back of the line, Sam peeked at the front, and noticed that James was gone. Then he looked to the elevators, where Steve had picked him up and pinned him to the wall, kissing him deeply. 

“All I wanted,” Sam sighed as he got out of the line. “Was some fucking coffee.”


End file.
